Before the End
by Skyelyr Shepard
Summary: This is a story of Kaidan and Shepard. She loves Garrus. Kaidan still loves her. When he asks to come back aboard, she says no. Kaidan still loves her. Now Garrus is gone, and the final battle approaches. Kaidan reaches out to Shepard one last time, before the end.
1. One

**Author's note**: I always wondered how it would turn out if Shepard turned Kaidan down when he asks to rejoin the Normandy. Strategically, Kaidan should be separate from Shepard, after all, by that time he's a SPECTRE and already had command experience. Like Shepard, he deserves his own ship and crew, and missions of similar capacity to Shepard's. But I always felt that Kaidan was far too attached to Shepard to stay away. My Shepard only ever loved Garrus, but he was killed on the Collecter base mission. Unlike the game story-line, this Kaidan never told her Shepard his feelings or asked her for a relationship, due to her lack of reciprocation. But he senses a finale looming, as Shepard heads off with her ship and crew towards her assault of the Illusive Man's headquarters. So does Shepard. And so when they meet on the Citadel one last time, they both realize the necessity of doing something for each other, before the end.

* * *

"Shepard."

"Alenko."  
Things weren't as they used to be. She was not the woman she used to be. Grief had hardened her and despite her and Alenko's history of service together, she avoided him. Shepard had therefore been surprised to get his email.

_Shepard,_

_I've heard you'll be back on the Citadel for some last minute things. I'd really like to see you, to wish you well and all that. Let me know if you have time to._

_Kaidan_

_Staff Commander, Biotics and Special Operations Division _

Now as she looked at him, he looked as good as ever. Perhaps his skin was a bit pale and his posture a little restless, but his dark brown eyes gleamed with the same fire she'd known.

"How's the Normandy?" Kaidan asked politely. "And the crew? They're all doing well?"

"Well enough, considering what they've been through," Shepard sighed tiredly.

She felt Kaidan's concerned gaze focus on her.

"And you Shepard? Are you alright?"

His capacity for compassion never failed in regards to her wellbeing. Her mind wandered back to better days, to a Kaidan who'd sat in the medbay by her unconscious form for hours, because he'd cared. _Some things didn't change_, she thought.

"Thanks for asking Kaidan, but I'm fine. I just want this thing finished."

_I'll see you soon Garrus._

Deep in her core, she knew there was no getting out of this war alive. Not for her.


	2. Two

Kaidan watched her eyes go unfocused and her brow contract slightly. His heart was fluttering inside his chest, something he now accepted as his inevitable reaction to Shepard.

She was just as beautiful as always, and always more beautiful than he remembered. But the dark skin beneath her eyes and the tightness in her jaw betrayed her. She was breaking.

"Shepard…" he began softly.

Her head snapped up and her gaze sharpened at his tone.

"Come get some drinks with me. Relax a little."

She unclenched a little and considered him. Her frank gaze never left his eyes. Whatever gears were turning back there, he could see nothing in her stare.

She nodded once. "Flux?"

He nodded back and they fell into step beside each other, winding through the crowds. He looked sideways at her once, as they climbed the steps towards the Presidium. He knew very well what awaited them up there, and despite his logical side insisting he knew her, he was afraid of her reaction. He was afraid she might break down on him if she saw it. But Shepard merely paused a moment upon reaching viewing proximity, her brow furrowing slightly, before continuing up the stairs to the club. Kaidan lingered a moment longer to gaze at it.

The marble Shepard stood in the front, her chin lifted, one hand holding her shotgun by her leg and the other raised and wielding a glowing ball of dark energy. Kaidan was at her left, his gazing off in another direction, both hands permanently raising his assault rifle to his shoulder. Behind him, and continuing with the circular pattern of the statue's arrangement, Kaidan could see the bulk of Wrex, whose statue he knew from memory, held a shotgun pointed menacingly forward. Tali's slight form, which he knew held a holographic omni-tool, was next to him, both of their marble backs to Kaidan. Then came Liara, of whom Kaidan could only see one glowing hand. She held glowing orbs in each of her hands. And on her other side, and the opposite side of Shepard from Kaidan, was _him._

The marble version of Garrus Vakarian held a sniper rifle across his chest proudly, gazing in the opposite direction of Kaidan. Kaidan's throat tightened momentarily looking upon the six of them, set to gaze forever outward from their perch in the presidium lake.

_A monument to the team who took down Saren _Udina had said when he commissioned it. Kaidan knew it was a tremendous honor.

So why did it hurt.


	3. Three

They talked for a long time in that booth, and slowly fell back into their steady camaraderie. Kaidan's missions sounded no easier than hers, but he was managing well. He had reached his full potential now, as both a leader and a soldier. It had been the potential she'd caught glimpses of two and a half years ago when they'd served together. She watched him talk, gesturing eloquently with his hands, and she smiled inwardly.

_Everything and everyone you touch finds its way, _Garrus had once told her.

_That's not true, _she'd playfully retorted, wrapping her arms around his neck. _My crew is who they are due to the natural order of the universe: the fact that the best rise no matter their circumstances. _

_Speaking for myself though, it was you that saved me _he had said seriously, his silvery blue eyes making her shiver all over.

_Garrus. Enough talki_-

"Shepard?" Kaidan was looking at her again, his dark eyes unreadable. "Do you want another because I was about to get myself one and…"

"Sure," she smiled at him. Guilt welled up, squelching the pleasant memories. She had completely missed everything he'd said. He smiled back her, a wide genuine smile and slid gracefully out of the booth and disappeared among the crowd.

Shepard drained what was left of her drink and sighed. She hadn't thought of _him_ in a while. Her duties of late had left little time for nostalgia. Grieving for Garrus had been a difficult period for her. The Alliance had cuffed her, Anderson had stonewalled her, and she'd sat in a room with nothing to do but remember his touch, his voice, his breath in her ear, his heat, his love. Over time, the sharpness of the pain had settled into a dull ache. Garrus was gone and nothing would replace him. She could not resurrect him. She could only join him.


	4. Four

He'd missed this. He'd missed her easy smile, her little laugh, her smell, the way her skin looked so soft. The ache in his chest only intensified when he was around her. But the pain was the most pleasurable kind of pain he'd ever encountered.

"…and then Wrex emails me and tells me Grunt has thirty or so breeding requests and, get this, I had some as well! I was mortified."

Shepard was chuckling, her gaze turned inwardly as she reminisced. He was laughing at her but his stomach was fluttering at her laughter and the way her eyes had crinkled joyfully.

"I think you should've been flattered," he joked.

"You didn't see the size of those krogan," she retorted playfully.

His smile slipped for a moment and he looked down at his glass.

"I didn't mean… I mean…" She broke off and frowned at her own glass.

"No Shepard, I should've been there. You were always there for me but I couldn't muster up enough courage to…"

"Kaidan," she said softly.

He started at the use of his name and fell silent. She was looking at him with the slightest creasing of her brow the only betrayal of the emotion within her.

"Let's not go there please. This is my last night of shore leave and I don't want to spend it rehashing old regrets," she murmured. She sighed, hunching over her drink.

"Spirits, I can't believe we're finally here. The "eve of battle"," she spat sarcastically.

Kaidan said nothing. The taint of finality hung in the air, an unspoken implication along with it. The fluttering in his stomach dimmed at the dead look on her face.

_She's not planning on coming back._

It hit him like a physical force, that thought. He jerked back in his seat and clenched his fists in his lap. Fear shot through him and his eyes welled. He was so tired of the longing, the fear, the uncertainty and the ever present regret. No more.

"Kaidan…please! What's wrong?"

Shepard's worried tone cut through his defenses like a blade, straight to his core. He looked up into her deep eyes, noticing her hand on his arm.

"You're flaring. Do we need to leave?"

"Stay with me tonight," he whispered hoarsely.

"Kaidan? What do you mean? Do we need to go to the hospital?"

Her eyes, her beautiful eyes were all he saw. Eyes the color of a clear shadowed pool. Of sunlight lancing through green leaves.

_I can't let myself let you go._

"Stay the night with me Shepard."

She was suddenly still, so still it frightened him. For a long moment they just looked at each other. Gradually, the noise of the club faded back into Kaidan's awareness. Then she cleared her throat and pulled her hand back from her arm. She looked down, her hair falling in front of her face to hide it slightly.

"I'm not coming back Kaidan," she said simply.

"I know."

She looked up at him and there was fear in her eyes. And that terrified him.

So he did the only thing he could think of. He leaned in and kissed her softly on the cheek. Her eyelashes brushed his cheek and he felt her warm breath on his neck.

Her hand shook only slightly when she placed it in his.

"Take me away from all of this," she whispered desperately.

So he did.


	5. Five

"That's beautiful," she whispered.

"Yes," he said simply.

Shepard turned. Kaidan was looking at her, the lights of the Citadel splayed across his skin. His eyes were dark and serious, his bearing determined. For a moment, she saw the young man in him, the one who'd slipped up before a vista much like this on the Citadel. That man was gone. Her death, the war, his duties; they had changed him.

His apartment was dark enough that when she reached for his cheek and laid her fingers onto it, she saw him flare slightly. His jaw contracted under her hand but otherwise he remained looking at her. Her hand slipped from his face to his hand, large and warm. Kaidan looked down at their fingers intertwining in the dim light.

"Shepard, we don't have to do this, I'm not sorry I asked, but I understand if you don't want to…" he trailed off, looking at her again with shadowed eyes. "I heard about Garru-,"

"Let's let the dead rest," Shepard said quietly. "This is something we both need. I need you right now."

His hand tightened on hers and they both returned to gazing out the large picture window.

"I need you too Shepard," came the quiet reply. "Always will."


	6. End

Kaidan grasped at her with so much trembling tenderness it made her chest tighten. When she reached to pull his lips to hers, she felt his hands on her back clench. He was warm and sweet and so soft. _So much softer than usual. _

She pulled back, startled by the ease in which that thought crept in. Kaidan's brow furrowed and his eyes, heavy and dark with desire, gazed into hers with a nearly tangible heat. But for all the intensity of his gaze, Shepard couldn't help notice the tentative movement of his hands when they found the bare skin between her shirt hem and her waistband. He stiffened almost unnoticeably when she gently removed his hands from her waist.

"You deserve better," she whispered. "I can't give you what you want."

Kaidan's face tightened. He sucked in a deep breath and paused before expelling it. Shepard watched the emotions flicker across his face, barely visible to anyone who didn't know him like she did. Her throat tightened when she noticed the glistening in his dark eyes.

"Shepard. I've watched you and wanted you to be mine since I first met you. But…" Kaidan paused, his eyes locked on hers. "…but I know we're not meant to be. So don't worry about what this will do to me. Everything that could be done to me has already been done."

She'd had happiness. But he only had her.

She had experienced a timeless love, if only for a short while. And all Kaidan had was the ghost of her love.

_Sometimes what a person wants is different from what a person needs _Garrus had once told her.

There were five heartbeats of silence until Shepard decided. She placed both of her hands on Kaidan's chest and felt his breath hitch at her touch.

"Kiss me."

Kaidan's hands covered hers. She saw fear and lust locked in a strange battle in those dark, dark eyes. He leaned down slowly and hesitated right before her lips. He breathed in.

_He's scared._

"Kaidan." she whispered.

"Shepard."

It sounded like a prayer to her. It sounded like a good-bye.

There was one more breath until his lips were on hers and his heat was everywhere. His hands clutched her against his broad form. He pressed her against the wall with a growl, slid his hands to her thighs, and picked her up as one would to a small child. His kisses were fire and his passion was infectious and Shepard was swept away.

He whispered her name softly and pleadingly as they tumbled over the edge together. And she whispered his back.

In the morning she dressed and gathered her possessions quietly without waking him. She paused before the door to the bedroom and looked back at his sleeping form.

"Good-bye Kaidan."

* * *

Kaidan woke at the sound of his name. He raised his head to see her in the doorway.

So beautiful.

She was smiling at him gently, but her eyes were sad and distant. They gazed at each other for just a fraction of a second, but it was an endless time for both. Then she turned and he never saw her again.

* * *

He was crouched behind a pile of rubble, dead men at his feet. A husk vaulted over the cover and he shot it quickly in the stomach before twisting to see the last man in his squad go down under three more. He was alone, against the hordes of darkness. 'Hordes of darkness' sounded like something Ash would've enjoyed reading about. There was nothing romantic about this.

Something white hot embedded itself into his arm. Immediately after, another embedded itself into his stomach. He lurched into the rubble, noting the blood smearing onto the cement as he slid down to the ground.

_Is that mine_.

The world grew grey around him. There was a ringing sound in his ears, like distant trumpets. The grey was fading to black.

_I love you _he whispered to nobody and everybody.

It was only a whisper but he heard it. Amongst the gunshots and the screams and the explosions he heard the whisper, as clearly as if she had been standing right beside him.

_Kaidan_ said the voice softly.

And the world spun on.


End file.
